CAIRO - “Saad el-Shazly was a courageous man; he never surrendered to, feared or flattered the regime. God will reward him for this and punish those who oppressed, persecuted and falsely tried him.” This is what Moustafa Ebeid says in his new book, Saad el-Shazly, ‘el-Askari Al-Abyad' (Saad el-Shazly, the White Soldier). In the first book of its kind about el-Shazly, an October War hero, Ebeid, a journalist and writer, reveals new sides to a patriotic soldier, a genius who served as Chief of Staff in the Egyptian Army in the October War. In his 270-page work, Ebeid reviews the life of el-Shazly, who was born in the small village of Shabratana in el-Gharbia Governorate. Later, he went to university and became great friends with late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser. His star began to rise after the events in Congo and the Yemen War, before he became Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Army. El-Shazly, born three years after the 1919 revolution, came from a rich family and it was this that enabled him to join the Military College in 1939 when he was 17 years old. The hero, who loved reading the works of Ahmed Hussein and Ahsan Abdel el-Qoddous, was commissioned into the Royal Guard, in whose service he gained much insight into royal conspiracies and politics. Ebeid's book deals with el-Shazly's relations with former presidents Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak. The author focuses on the reasons behind his clashes with Sadat, before describing what el-Shazly got up to after leaving the military. El-Shazly was appointed Egyptian Ambassador in London in May 1974, before being sent into exile in Algeria. He then returned home, only to be locked in a struggle with Mubarak's regime, which court martialled and falsely imprisoned him. El-Shazly and Mubarak According to the new biography, published by Al-Rawaq Publishing House, although el-Shazly was superior to Mubarak in the October War, the latter tried to change the facts to make himself look better. In 1983, Mubarak accused el-Shazly of disclosing military secrets and he spent the next 13 years in Algerian exile. El-Shazly would die before the ousting of Mubarak. The author reveals that el-Shazly and Mubarak hated each other, because the former president was afraid that he would compete with him for the title of hero of the October War. Mubarak was also angry at the way el-Shazly behaved towards him during the First Gulf War. In one of his own books, el-Shazly wrote that Mubarak conspired against Iraq, encouraging US President George Bush Senior to go to war against Saddam. Ebeid talks about the five books written by el-Shazly about the October War: ‘Four Years in Diplomatic Affairs', ‘The Arab Military Choice' and ‘The Eighth Crusade'. The author includes rare photographs of el-Shazly, his wife, their daughter and their grandchildren, as well as a number of prominent Egyptians and other Arabs. "This book, written by an undistinguished author, rediscovers Saad Eddin el-Shazly, a patriotic citizen and a genius. I mean to reveal the truth about this unique character," as Ebeid says in his introduction.
